What’s the best way to encourage good performance? Employers have always struggled with this question. One answer is to pay employees based on how well they perform their jobs. Many private sector employers have adopted pay-for-performance (PFP) programs, and several federal agencies have also experimented with PFP. Some federal PFP programs have operated successfully for many years; others have been more controversial. Last year, Congress terminated a PFP program at the Defense Department. Employees complained that the program was arbitrary and lacked transparency. Clearly, designing a successful PFP program is not always easy.
Loading ...The Postal Service adopted an annual PFP program in 2003. PFP is the only source of annual pay adjustments for Postal Service non-bargaining employees. Employees and their managers review targets and expectations at the beginning of the year. During the year, managers provide feedback to employees through mid-year performance reviews. Then, at the end of the year, employees receive a rating.
For most employees, the rating is based on a combination of their individual accomplishments and how well certain targets have been met by the unit, district, area, or the Postal Service as a whole. The employee’s position determines the choice of targets included. For example, the rating for a postmaster of a small Post Office would be based on factors such as how well Post Offices in his or her group met revenue and expense targets and how well the district met delivery performance goals.
The Postal Service’s PFP program has won awards and been cited by other organizations as a model to emulate, but there have been some criticisms. Some of the factors on which an employee is evaluated may be outside the employee’s immediate control. Given the Postal Service’s current financial condition and the drop in mail volume, it can be difficult for even high-performing employees to receive an increase.
What do you think? What makes for a good system of rewarding performance?
This topic is hosted by the OIG’s Risk Analysis Research Center (RARC).
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The Postal Service’s pay-for-performance system is an utter and complete fraud. The criteria are arbitrary and in many cases beyond the control of the person being evaluated, and have helped turn the “Service” (what’s left of “service,” at any event) into a chase-the-numbers game, no matter what the impact is on service to our customers. Our focus on making arbitrary numbers at all costs, rather than actually moving the mail, has harmed our mission, demoralized the management ranks, and speeded up the move by the public away from hard copy mail and to the internet. The only–and I mean ONLY–people who have benefitted from this fiasco are some upper level executives, who have been able to emulate their private sector counterparts to a limited degree by manipulating the system. The sooner we get rid of this boon-doggle and return to a system that allows a focus on actually moving the mail, and provides freedom to make decisions without micromanaging based on a desire to hit arbitrary numbers and secure someone’s bonus, the better chance we’ll have to save this organization.
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I am a Postmaster of a level 15 office. It is a very busy office. Each year I have revenue goals set for me. I have been given less hours to do more responsibilities, service, etc. I have not had a “raise” in several years, because I have ranked as a “non-contributor”. I take offense at that. I work very hard to operate my office the best it can. I provide excellent service to my community. I care about my office. In this tough economical time, people spend as little as they can when it comes to their mailing needs, They are watching their pennies, and yet I have been told in order for me to qualify for my raise I must make more revenue. I do not feel like this system is fair.
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I’d rather we went back to the original way it was – I saw ours marked way down this year – even though we made the majority of our goals. This has been the first year we’ve felt we have no ownership of our process. We’ve got area folks telling us how to run, how fast to run, etc. Scores haven’t been sent out since Dec. Can’t share info with our people, because we don’t have any info. I’ve always taken a lot of pride in my job – but for the past several years have felt like the company has absolutely no respect for supervisors. I saw that this year in our NPA. I even noted in answering the goals I was given that we could not make them.
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Hit the street and do some real contribution to moving the mail.
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pay for performance, exfc,mar gar score all of these not based upon the basic postal service’s main character which is the service to the public.
the whole agency become like the profit based like private corparation .
the post office don’t have money to treat their employee with couple of burger and hot dog anymore,
but they DO have maney for the bonuses and award for the postal management like pay for performance system.
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it should be for everyone not only for management,
and let them run the show of their station too.
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The Post offices PFP program will never work as long as those that are managing it use it as a means to bully and intiminate those below them. On top of that its like hiting a moving target. Before a year is up they are either changing gore values or the percentages it takes to make them.
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The ratings were lowered illegally with no reasonable reason by the district manager, only an unreasonable excuse which was a lie. On top of that, the one goal that is rated locally, the communication goal, can be easily manipulated with lies and untruths, ie: 40 years in service, always been there for the office, served as OIC nearly 3 previous years, rated fy 2009 1 in communication out of a range of 1 to 15.
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We are not being graded as individuals in the PFP but as a unit. If you are going to create a system that is going to aim to motivate Supervisors to do their best do it fair across the board. You have hard charger supervisors and you have slackers that are nothing but dead weight and how is it possible that we both get the same rating. How can we be rated as a unit when not everyone is doing their fare share? PFP discriminates against who your manager likes or don’t like. It is not applied fairly to all.
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Management employees should be paid by the hour same as craft employees. Their PFP makes management far too aggressive and confrontational with craft employees in order to get “their numbers” up.
Management is not held accountable for the millions of dollars in grievances the USPS has to pay out for avoidable violations of labor contracts.
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EAS employees get rewarded for the hard work the employees do. Main problem though all to often only the ‘pet’ employee gets the award.
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The program was designed as a fair system to reward good performance. It has been manipulated by headquarters staff so the Postmasters, Managers, and Supervisors who are the employees who are responsible for making everything work are not appropriately compensated. Goals that are set at the beginning of the year are adjusted so this group do not meet the goals at the end of the year. The higher levels are compensated because the original numbers are not moved for their merit. Many of the Managers of Post Office Operations either do not understand how to score the non-tangible core requirements for Postmasters or they are instructed to downgrade scores for these items. The past 5 years has demonstrated a disappointing trend in the lack of integrity at the higher levels. Regular manipulation of calculations and numbers to meet an end result however none of the documents are reality.
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The current PFP system has not been administered equally throughout the Postal Service. Each Area or District has its own criteria for setting goals, and the end result is that many employees are left with unattainable targets that they had no input in establishing. The narrative above states the intent of the system very well, but it does not address the reality of a system that funds offices with less hours than it takes to keep the doors open, etc.
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I BELIEVE RE-EVALUATION OF EACH INDIVIDUAL EMPLOYEE IS A MUST AND AS FOR BONUSES, THE NATION WOULD AGREE IT’S UNREALISTIC AND DISAPPOINTING TO HEAR AT THIS POINT IN TIME.
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Goals, goals and goals!! Nothing wrong with goals but when employees in administrative offices whether district or Area is looking to make goals to get pay raise, they do not provide sources to the management in the field. I see it first hand especially the ones who were hired after I was and making more money at the same level. These people could not supervise or manage the post offices they were in but these people send threatening emails CC boses just so that they can make their goals and get pay raise. When us supervisors and managers in the field meet on our end of year, we are told that we did not make goals, well we do not control sources. What if postmaster gives you goal of 1700 carriers off the street but refuse to hire carriers needed. What if boss gives you the goal to reduce workhours on the retail or F4, ofcourse I would care less about the service, in turn less revenue. These kind of goals got nothing but management fired for falsifying in the past. Anyway, I do not know if there is a better system. I suggest OIG to listen to some of the telecons, and you will be surprised to how we get treated no better than slumdog.
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Pay for Performance can positively transform and organization or it can create chaos. It has to be very well thought out beforehand and the program’s development needs to incorporate all parties involved. We have over 15 years experience with developing PFP systems at Labor Performance and have seen them completely transform organizations’ results and employee morale. We find that the key to success is goal alignment. The pay incentives have to be for results that drive success to the organization. The programs that we have seen that have failed are when employee incentives are not fully aligned with the organizations goals, and in some cases, even inversely aligned. Needless to say those programs did not last long.
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this creates greed which in turn causes fraud in changing paperwork and hiding mail in trailers which is done at North metro mail facility.
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My experience has been that poor performers are not dismissed, they are transferred.
I have seen TV documentaries where some employees slept in their trucks while on duty and others drove drunk. They suffered no consequences.
I have ongoing problems with packages stolen from the post office. Management’s response has been a verbal shrug, i.e., “That’s the way it is”.
Management can’t or won’t take effective action. No one seems willing to rock the boat.
It is not surprising that the USPS is in debt; if a private business were run the way the post office is run, it would have gone out of business a long time ago.
It is time to start firing people. Get rid of the incompetent, lazy or corrupt employee whether management or staff. Improve security so that crooks are caught and prosecuted (and dismissed).
If there is not a fundamental change the way the USPS is run, then let it go out of business.
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Pay for performance, ha! Would someone like to tell me why they are paying new PMR hires more than PMR’s and OIC’s that have been employed for years????????
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